Talk:The Man Who Never Was

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Possible Typo? The Article states "The film earned an estimated $1.1 million in North American rentals in 1956.[2]" Last time I checked the VHS/DVD market was still on the drawing boards. Is this incorrect, or does it somehow relate to some other film industry term I am unfamiliar with? 65.27.39.221 (talk) 08:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC)J Davis

Hello......this is an annonymous message......my first time....eh heh heh........

Does anyone out there in the great cyber void know what the name is of the poem that the narrator recites during the opening and closing scenes of "The Man Who Never Was?"

I believe it goes....

Last night I dreamed a deadly dream...
......past the Isle of Skye...
I saw a dead man win a fight...
And I think the man was I......
(End quote)

If anyone knows anything to help, will be much obliged....

Annonymous

It's a historic ballard based supposedly on the Battle of Otterburn collected by Walter Scott in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) it is usually rendered as:

But I hae dream'd a deary dream,

Beyond the Isle of Sky;

I saw a dead man win a fight,

And I think that man was I.' or

But I have dreamd a dreary dream,

Beyond the Isle of Sky;

I saw a dead man win a fight,

And I think that man was I.’

See [1] [2]

The opening lines of the film "In the graveyard of the Spanish town of Huelva there lies a British subject. As he died alone, in the foggy damp of England...he little thought that he would lie forever under the sunny skies of Spain...." are also lifted verbatim from the book.

The other famous quote from the film "They also serve who only stand and wait." is from John Milton On His Blindness

Some or all of this probably should be merged into the articleAlci12 18:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction?

In the article it says that the corpse was one homeless Glyndwr Michael, but at the linked site about his grave it says that he was indeed a British major called Glyndwr Martin. Could anyone clarify that?

• It's been a long time since I read the book, but if the story of "Glyndwr Michael's" death is accurate (rat poison) then he cannot be "Major Martin"; the XX Committee (the department of British Intelligence responsible for misdirection) specifically sought out a cadaver of a person who had drowned - in the event that the Germans performed an autopsy. It would blow the whole ruse if "Major Martin", who supposedly drowned after his plane crashed at sea, was found to have taken rat poison before his death! --Insley 05:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

See our own Operation Mincemeat article - "Through the most discreet inquiries they were able to secure the body of a 34-year old man who recently died of chemically-induced pneumonia as the result of ingesting rat poison.... Since the man died of pneumonia, the fluid in his lungs would be consistent with that of a man who had been at sea for an extended period." --John Kenneth Fisher 03:11, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The only problem I see is that all the articles I can find on modern rat poison say that it kills by interfering with blood clotting causing internal bleeding Certainly the rat poison of 1943 must have used a different method of killing if it produced pneumonia and this difference should be noted otherwise the claim that "Glyndwr Michael" is Major Martin is of questionable value.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The links are a curiousity, but absolutely establish no connection whatsoever between their claim and the identity of Willie Martin. They slam Montagu without showing any credible reason why they should be believed, and term something "Pure Hollywood" again without any evidence.--Buckboard 10:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It should be said that the identification of Major Martin as Glyndwr Michael is *not* made in the book about which this article is written, so it shouldn’t be included here as if it part of the book - as it stands it looks like the book revealed the identity, and the dispute over the identity on the Operation Mincemeat page is a contradiction of this. Montagu *never* revealed the identity of the corpse used, that was the work of much later researchers. It should also be said that the Navy have chosen John Melville (also mentioned on the Mincemeat page) as the true “Major Martin”, and he seems to be a stronger candidate.Jock123 (talk) 11:44, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction

This article doesn't seem to talk much about the film. It also manages to contradict information in the Operation Mincemeat article. If there is not enough information to make an entire article on the film, should it be merged into the other article? Pennywisepeter 16:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Goons reference

Which is the particular Goon show referred to, anyone? Please? Safebreaker (talk) 22:51, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, the Goon Show episode had the same title as the film, i.e., The Man Who Never Was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 16:07, 25 February 2013 (UTC)